Michael Jensen, on the news that Australian atheists had been denied advertising space by APN Outdoors:

Bring it on, I say. The atheists must be allowed their place on the bus.

Reverend Dr Michael Jensen Moore College, Sydney

I thought Peter Green’s one was good too:

APN Outdoor has blocked a campaign by the Atheist Foundation of Australia advertising its no-God views. I am disturbed to hear this.

One of the most basic freedoms is that of religious expression and debate. Already there are efforts under way to restrict these rights both at a national and an international level, driven by individuals who despise religion, and by regimes seeking a legal basis for persecuting religious minorities.

Although I consider atheism mostly ill-informed and often irrational, I strongly defend the right of atheists to advertise, debate and promulgate their position - and to call religious people stupid, war-mongering and any of the other charges they throw at us, if they want to.

Reverend Peter Green, Silver Street Baptist Mission, Marrickville

It’s wordy and somewhat turgid, which shows that you can get a reasonable argument, on topic, into the letters pages if you simply persist. It doesn’t have to be elegant prose or the essence of pithydom.

Hendry, smh:

APN Outdoor as a commercial media enterprise is free to accept or decline clients and projects. It is obliged to neither atheists nor theists.

Paid advertisement is not the only way to market wares or an opinion ("Atheists message misses local bus”, January 9; Letters, January 10-11). The letters page of the Herald is a platform for a robust exchange of ideas and views. Just like other topics on the letters page (such as public policies, society and sports), theistic or atheistic arguments are embraced or rejected.

True, the letters editor sits deified at the pearly gates, deciding which topic is allowed air and sustenance. But letters do not write themselves. Let it not be said the letters editor is biased one way or another if readers don’t respond or comment in writing.

Hendry Wan, Matraville

Dedicated to Melburnians, wannabes or soon-to-bes, in The Age.

Life on the edge

YES, Hannah Francis (Letters, 12/1), we Sydney-siders may not be as cultured and discerning as Melburnians.

Well, thanks to Google, we now know who (Haruki) Murakami is. Melburnians imagine theirs is an obscure European city in an indie film where every smoke ring is redolent with existential meaning.

Sydney-siders are realists living in a thumping metropolis where life is a documentary, not a film set.

We have neither time to pose, nor time for poseurs. Besides, cookies and rooftop cinemas are for the birds.

Hendry Wan, Matraville, NSW

I had a letter published in today’s SMH, in response to this letter:

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States will be for black Americans, and also for many white Americans, the amazing fulfilment of Martin Luther King jnr’s dream that people will be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

In a world that is so divided on racial lines, Obama’s inauguration carries the eternal hope that whatever unites us will ultimately defeat the relentless forces of hatred, enmity and suspicion that divide us. This is a hope that is the bedrock of our democratic governance, and without such a belief in the intrinsic worth of our common humanity, civilisation is doomed to a destiny devoid of peace.

So while Obama’s inauguration will mark a defining moment for race relations in America, it will be inevitably clouded by the horrific state of affairs in Gaza. Despite this concurrence, however, the fact remains that there is a common link between the two. The historic injustices felt by generations of black Americans have proven to be exactly of the same order as those felt by the Islamic world towards the colonising forces of the Judaeo-Christian West.

At his inauguration, Obama needs to therefore make perfectly clear that the forces of democracy must not only extend to uniting the world’s races, but they must also extend to uniting the world’s three great monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

This is a task that constitutes what is perhaps the most monumental challenge to face the Obama administration. It will ultimately help bring to an end the Bush Administration’s “war on terror”, and it will bear further testimony to these immortal words of the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal.”

Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin Rivett (ACT)

The bits in green were the bits that the letters editor cut out of my reply:

While there have been plenty of people putting unrealistic expectations on Barak Obama, Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin (letters, 19/1/09) takes the cake. He wants President-elect Obama to lead the world’s democracies in “uniting the world’s three great monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Islam & Christianity”. Leaving aside such minor theological issues such as: “Is Jesus God?” hasn’t Rev. Zankin heard of the concept of the separation of church & state?

From today’s SMH :

Manny Ax and Sam Allis are on the money ("Concert pianist with an ax to grind”, January 21). Of course we should clap after a stirring moment in a piece of classical music, just as we do after a great sax solo in a jazz concert. Who cares if it is not the official end of the piece?

David McKay Bathurst

Ah, Kevin you noticed! I’d forgotten I sent it till I saw it this morning!

If I may say, I also think it is appropriate to refrain from clapping at times. [Ecclesiastes 3?]